Discovery, Space Station Maneuver to Dodge Debris 23 March 2009

Discovery, space station maneuver to dodge debris 23 March 2009

"Everything looks fine for the third EVA," Jeffs said.

The debris, which measures a little over 10 centimeters (4 inches), came from a Chinese rocket launched in 1999 that broke up in March 2000.

Elsewhere on the ISS, experts were working on a water-recycling unit that processes astronauts' urine and sweat into drinking water.

After working on the urine processing assembly Sunday and replacing a part, ISS Expedition 18

commander Michael Fincke "was successful at gearing the system up. The first sample was done," In this image taken from NASA video, space shuttle Jeffs said. Discovery Mission Specialist Joseph Acaba (C) outside the Quest airlock of the ISS on March 21. Discovery and the ISS maneuvered to avoid debris during Monday's Several more samples will likely be completed spacewalk, dropping into a lower orbit, NASA officials during the mission, he added, so that Discovery said. crew can bring them back to Earth for analysis.

The machine, which was delivered to the ISS in November -- and has not yet functioned properly -- Discovery and the International Space Station is key to double the orbiting station's crew from maneuvered to avoid debris during Monday's three to six and for long-term space expeditions spacewalk, dropping into a lower orbit, NASA such as moon landings or missions to Mars. officials said. Carrying large amounts of water aboard the shuttle Firing its steering jets, Discovery turned the shuttle or other space vessels takes up room needed for and space station 180 degrees for three hours other equipment and increases costs. Sunday to increase drag, a maneuver designed to alter the vessel's trajectory and avoid an During their spacewalk, Arnold and Acaba will try to approaching piece of debris. fix a jammed cargo platform after Acaba and Steve Swanson, another astronaut, on Saturday The ISS's altitude was lowered by 2 miles (3,3 inadvertently inserted upside down a restraint pin kilometers) to about 223 miles (359 kilometers), used to clamp it to the outside the ISS. explained Bill Jeffs, a spokesman at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Discovery's latest mission, which blasted off last Sunday from Florida with a crew of seven "The time of closest approach was expected to be astronauts, is one of the last major efforts in a two hours into the EVA (extravehicular activity) decade-long push by 16 countries to build the Monday," he told AFP. Astronauts Richard Arnold 100-billion-dollar outpost in space. and Joseph Acaba are scheduled to begin their spacewalk, the third and last of this mission, at NASA has scheduled nine shuttle flights through 1543 GMT. 2010 to finish building the space station. Upcoming

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shuttle flights also include the last mission to service the orbiting Hubble telescope in May.

Discovery is due to land back on Earth on March 28 at 1742 GMT, two days after a Russian Soyuz mission takes off for the ISS carrying a crew of three, including US billionaire businessman Charles Simonyi, who has shelled out 35 million dollars for his second trip as a space tourist.

On Discovery, crew member Koichi Wakata became the first Japanese astronaut to join the ISS for a long stay. He is scheduled to remain on the orbiting station until June.

The Discovery mission, delayed five times, is the first by a US space shuttle in 2009.

APA citation: Discovery, space station maneuver to dodge debris (2009, March 23) retrieved 29 September 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2009-03-discovery-space-station-maneuver-dodge.html

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